US Teases 'Positive' Patriot Systems News for Ukraine

The United States on Monday teased "positive" news for Ukraine on deliveries of Patriot air defense systems.

"There will be fresh news on air defense. The Ukrainians asked NATO for seven Patriot systems in April. And we have a very positive response on that, which will come in the next few days," U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said during a Foreign Policy online discussion, Voice of America reported Tuesday.

Ukraine is currently in possession of at least two Patriot missile defense systems—one donated by the U.S., and another which was jointly sent to the war-torn country by Germany and the Netherlands.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine needs at a "minimum" of "seven more 'Patriots' or similar air defense systems" to protect his country from Russian attacks in the full-scale invasion launched by President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.

Putin "must be brought down to earth, and our sky must become safe again … And it depends fully on your choice …[the] choice whether we are indeed allies," the Ukrainian leader said in April in a speech to the NATO-Ukraine Council.

Smith said "it will be a big week" in Washington, referring to the NATO summit, which will be held Tuesday through July 11.

The U.S. Ambassador to the NATO military alliance said to be on the lookout for "specific announcements that will come for Ukraine, for NATO allies, news about defense production, about sustainability, about cybersecurity."

Zelensky "will feel the steadfast commitment to Ukraine" from NATO, she said.

"We will have a financial commitment, according to which both Ukraine and Moscow will understand very clearly that we, the trans-Atlantic partners, will not back down. As you know, Putin predicted that we would all turn away. We are not distracted. We are focused on the issue of Ukraine and are going to stick to the chosen course, so keep an eye out for announcements of financial commitments," Smith added.

Smith's comments came as Russia launched one of its deadliest attacks of the year, its troops sending a barrage of missiles to hit targets across the country, including the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv. At least 38 people were killed and 190 injured nationwide.

Russia denied targeting the children's hospital, saying on Monday that debris from a Ukrainian air-defense missile had hit the facility. Ukraine said the Russians used a Kh-101 cruise missile to attack the site. Ukraine's Security Service said it had found wreckage from the weapon.

"The experts' conclusions are unequivocal—it was a direct strike," Ukraine's State Security Service said on Telegram. Newsweek has as yet been unable to verify this.

Russian military analyst Ian Matveev assessed on X, formerly Twitter, why Kyiv's air defense couldn't "cope with the massive shelling of cruise missiles" on Monday.

"If we remember past attacks, missiles and drones attacked Kyiv in waves, gradually. Perhaps this time, the Russian military was able to guess and send all the missiles at once, in a short period of time. For example, in 2-3 minutes. Hence these concentrated attacks of 5-6 missiles in just a few tens of seconds," he said.

"But the Ukrainian air defense system turned out to be not powerful enough to overcome such an overload at the moment," Matveev continued.

"In any case, the root cause is clear, the lack of modern systems such as Patriot. For full-fledged and layered defense, Ukraine needs at least 10 more complete complexes of 8 launchers each," he added. "Then it will be possible to shoot down a significant part of the missiles on approach to Kyiv and it will not be possible to create an overload."

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